My Fault, Love Lost
by mrsProbie
Summary: Peter is frustrated with himself, with the mistakes he's made. But this is one mistake that is far too permanent for his liking...


My Fault, Love Lost

The day I met her, I had a crush. Who wouldn't? Her long, wavy red hair was beautiful, as were her deep eyes, the color of emeralds. Her long legs looked amazing in the uniform skirt she had to wear, even with those occasional nicks she got from tripping. (Clumsy girl, but it only made her more endearing.) Sharp as a whip, with wit to match that of McGonagall herself, Lily Evans was the girl of my dreams, and had been since second year.

Of course, James disregarded this. He wanted Lily, and nothing was going to get in the way of that- of his 'claiming' her. But he couldn't stop me from thinking about her, from fantasizing about life without him in the way. Would we have gotten married? Would we have children?

I knew she had liked me back for a long time. Out of all us Marauders, I was the outcast, the follower. Lily had a thing for outcasts- until she dated James, of course. She never knew that the only reason she accepted that date was because Sirius slipped a love potion into her pumpkin juice. Even James knew.

Remus agreed with me, fortunately, when it came to disapproving of it. It was like date rape, but worse! It led to marriage, to the birth of a child, to my hatred of the boy (man) who was formerly one of my best friends.

But, as I was saying, Lily had a thing for outcasts. She befriended Snape early on, before Hogwarts, even. Then, when we started first year, all semi-innocent, she started hanging around me. Even then, when we were so young that girls still had the lurgy, I still found myself falling for her easily.

Of course, James then decided that Lily would be his, and it became an unwritten law that any boyfriend or crush of Lily's was no friend of James's. I had to choose between Lily and James (...and Sirius and Remus), and I chose to keep the affection of friends. Lily and I faded apart, to where the only connections we had were James and Hogwarts.

I apparently made the wrong choice- over the years, the other 'Marauders,' as we dubbed ourselves, betrayed me. I was always the scapegoat, the one they picked on when they were having a bad day. My low self-esteem only got worse around them, and it got to the point that I hated myself. I was on the verge of committing suicide when Severus Snape approached me.

Snape told me that if I wanted revenge on the Marauders, I could do the same thing he did: join the Death Eaters. It was the ultimate.

So I did. I found that the one thing the Dark Lord became set upon was the death of the Potters' child, and set about getting together a plan to find out their location. It wasn't easy- I wasn't their Secret Keeper, after all- (I had been deemed too weak to hold the position), but I managed eventually.

I approached Snape slowly. "Here's all the information the Dark Lord requested," I said in a low voice, handing him a packet of parchment. I thought I saw a tear, but he turned away and wiped the offending cheek before I could get a good look. Was it possible he felt as much regret, as much guilt, as I did?

No. He was Snape, after all. The penultimate of evil.

"Thank you, Pettigrew," he said coldly, and Apparated away.

I regretted what I had done, but not so much so as to follow Snape and retrieve the information. No, I was much too frightened for that. What if they couldn't access the house? What would the Dark Lord do?

Kill me.

That's what.

I leaned against a tree and prayed to the Christian God that they could access the house, and that Lily wouldn't be harmed. After all, all he wanted was the baby. But Lily was too good a person for my hopes to come true, she would probably sacrifice her own life rather than watch her child die.

I dragged my foot to create a cross in the loose dirt off the side of the abandoned road, with a P and an L on either side. Then I Apparated to London, to hide.

As I tried to sleep that night, all I could hear was my imagination's version of Lily's death. In it, she was not killed by a simple Avada Kedavra, but rather by a multitude of gory spells.

I took my wand out of my pocket, and (much as the Dark Mark was burned into my left forearm) burned the inscription _RIP LE_ into my right forearm. I hated the pain, but told myself I deserved it for causing the death of the love of my life.


End file.
